MELBOURNE, April 26: Taking note of widespread criticism of long drawn out schedule of 2007 World Cup, International Cricket Council Chief Executive Malcolm Speed says it could be reduced to 40 days in next edition to be held in south Asia.

“I think next time we will stick with 16-team format but I would hope we can shave a week from the tournament,” Speed was quoted as saying by The Australian.

“This year, we lost two days because of Easter. West Indian countries are strongly Christian and they did not want us to play on Good Friday. I can see the tournament coming back to 40 days, which is just about right,” he added.

Speed, however, said longer duration of the tournament was good for publicity of the game. “I think it is a positive for the game that cricket is on back pages while World Cup is on rather than have an abbreviated schedule.”

The ICC chief said he was disappointed with “far too much negative comment which is ill-informed. One of other negatives is that we have not had a great number of memorable matches. Of 20 I have been to, I can think of four of five really good games, five were not too bad and lot of others were no-contests.”

Speed admitted ouster of India and Pakistan was big blow to the tournament. “A huge blow... We have seen matches where we expected India to be playing Pakistan and they were not there, so it has taken some of shine off World Cup, without in any way denigrating great efforts of Ireland and Bangladesh.”—Agencies